Student activists open cafe on double-decker in city

Student activists open cafe on double-decker in city

By Andreas Baenziger

JAKARTA: The waiter, Roland, was the man who organized the student demonstrations in Indonesia's capital Jakarta nearly a year ago which triggered the events leading to the overthrow of the dictator Soeharto.

The chef, Rigga, led the students from the mechanical engineering faculty and, as general secretary of the student union at Trisakti University, he also carried political responsibility for the demonstration in which four students were killed on May 12, 1998.

They and 19 other student activists have now opened Cafe Smooth, a cafe in an old double decker bus in a business district of Jakarta.

"We want to make some money," said Ivan. "But the main reason we are doing it is to talk to people, to discuss our concerns." The cafe has become something of a venue for people trying to examine and explain the past.

"It is not easy to forget those memories," said Roland. Rigga agreed: "One of my people was killed. He was shot in the back." The students want to use the money they make at Cafe Smooth to finally discover the true facts behind those fatal shots fired on peacefully demonstrating students who were already on the retreat.

Who pulled the trigger? Who gave the order to shoot? A military commission of enquiry could not, or would not, find those responsible, even though there were eyewitnesses, and the fatal cartridges could have shown who had fired them. Yet the cartridges, the most important pieces of evidence, disappeared in police hands.

Many Indonesians believe sections of the military wanted to provoke a bloodbath at the height of the protests in May last year, to provide them with an excuse to crack down - with or without Soeharto - and seize power.

There was indeed a bloodbath, but in the end it cost Soeharto his position and put Indonesia on the path to democracy after 30 years of dictatorship. The students did not just trigger this process, they also carried it along for the first months.

Their main demands now are the resignation of President B.J. Habibie, who was in league with the Soeharto regime, and the withdrawal of the military from politics.

Yet the student movement has grown remarkably quiet since the beginning of the year as a deep political split emerges within their ranks.

"I can't bear to read anything by them at the moment," said Tunggul Sirait, rector of Indonesian Christian University. "They are completely wrapped up with themselves."

The radical student representatives, who are in the majority at the Protestant university, are boycotting the parliamentary elections planned for June 7 - unless that is President Habibie resigns beforehand to make way for a neutral caretaker government.

Their more moderate colleagues, such as those among Trisakti University's 28,000 students, are prepared to accept the flaws in the fledgling democratic process.

"There are still a lot of obstacles," said Taufik Kurniawan, who is responsible for "strategic planning" on Trisakti's student body. "But we still believe that these elections are the best way for our country to learn democracy. We have to make a start."

The most serious obstacle the moderate students are having to swallow is the continued political role of the military. Although the military representatives in parliament will only number 38 after the elections, the students still consider this too many.

Nevertheless they still want to play a part in the elections. They want to go into the residential districts of Jakarta to discuss democracy with the people who have only once - in 1955 -experienced truly free elections since Indonesia gained its independence.

They know that this will not be an easy task because most people are struggling simply to survive, said Taufik. The students want to become election observers to ensure that there is no intimidation at the polling booths. They want to be an ethical rather than a political force.

Three months before the elections and no less than 141 political parties have registered. Forty-eight of them have already been confirmed - they have fulfilled the requirement to put up candidates in at least nine of the 27 electoral provinces.

But the large number of parties is likely to result in a split, an indecisive election result, even if only four parties are really significant. They are the ruling Golkar Party led by President Habibie, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle led by Megawati Soekarnoputri - daughter of the country's first president Sukarno who was deposed by Soeharto - the Party of National Awakening led by liberal Muslim leader Abdurrahman Wahid, and the National Mandate Party led by Amien Rais.

None of these parties is likely to achieve an absolute majority and it will be difficult to form a government capable of winning a majority. Yet that is perhaps not the most important factor.

"In the first instance, we need to experience honest and just elections for once," said Rector Sirait of Indonesian Christian University. "If the elections are not generally accepted, we will face the threat of a social revolution.

-- Sueddeutsche Zeitung